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Sale
Red
750ml
Bottle: $51.07 $51.79
6 bottles: $51.00
From Adi Badenhorst, Swartland's savoury, mineral and meaty tones chime though here, the fruit taken from a single...
12 FREE
DC
94
VM
91
Red
750ml
Bottle: $19.20
12 bottles: $18.82
Cinsault and Pais.
Sale
Dessert/Fortified Wine
750ml
Bottle: $26.98 $28.40
6 bottles: $24.80
Brilliant golden colour. Complex, fine and elegant nose with pineapple and apricot aromas combined with notes of...
Case only
Spirits
750ml - Case of 6
Bottle: $45.03
12 FREE
Sale
Red
750ml
Bottle: $24.90 $27.60
Cinsault from the historic Bechtold Vineyard in the Mokelumne River AVA of Lodi. The twenty-five acre own-rooted...
White
750ml
Bottle: $45.00
• 100% Palomino. • From a less-than-one-hectare parcel of 80-year-old vines planted in slate at high altitude....
12 FREE
Sale
Dessert/Fortified Wine
375ml
Bottle: $14.89 $15.55
12 bottles: $14.77
A perfect introduction to Sauternes, this has very nice dried-papaya and mango character, creamy richness and...
JS
92
Dessert/Fortified Wine
750ml
Bottle: $35.94
A perfect introduction to Sauternes, this has very nice dried-papaya and mango character, creamy richness and...
12 FREE
JS
92
Dessert/Fortified Wine
750ml
Bottle: $88.88
12 bottles: $87.10
Lemon, honey, mineral and light spice. Very attractive aromas. Full-bodied, with fresh acidity and a long finish...
12 FREE
WS
95
WA
94
Dessert/Fortified Wine
750ml
Bottle: $93.00
12 bottles: $87.78
Beautiful aromas of orange zest are followed by gingerbread, caramel and crème brûlée flavors. This is a...
12 FREE
WE
96
WA
94
Dessert/Fortified Wine
750ml
Bottle: $113.40
12 bottles: $111.13
Tasted single blind against its peers. This has a very well -defined nose of dried pineapple, quince and vanilla pod...
12 FREE
WA
93
VM
93
Dessert/Fortified Wine
375ml
Bottle: $54.94
Pale gold, the 2009 Climens offers up a fabulously fragrant nose of green tea, chamomile, powdered ginger, lemon...
12 FREE
DC
97
WA
97
Dessert/Fortified Wine
750ml
Bottle: $97.20
12 bottles: $91.20
Pale gold, the 2009 Climens offers up a fabulously fragrant nose of green tea, chamomile, powdered ginger, lemon...
12 FREE
DC
97
WA
97
Sale
Dessert/Fortified Wine
375ml
Bottle: $39.94 $43.20
24 bottles: $39.90
Pale lemon-gold colored, the 2016 Climens is a little youthfully mute, revealing notions of ripe peaches, mango and...
WA
96
DC
95
Sale
Dessert/Fortified Wine
750ml
Bottle: $44.95 $48.60
Medium yellow-gold. Restrained aromas of peach and spices offer good lift. Very ripe and thick, with strong acidity...
VM
94
WS
94
Dessert/Fortified Wine
750ml
Bottle: $49.90
12 bottles: $48.90
12 FREE
Dessert/Fortified Wine
750ml
Bottle: $59.94
6 bottles: $58.74
The 2010 Coutet has quite an intense bouquet with linseed oil and wax resin infusing the dried honey aromas, then...
12 FREE
VM
95
WS
95
Sale
Dessert/Fortified Wine
375ml
Bottle: $23.94 $26.20
One of the top sweet wines in this report is the 2016 Château Coutet, which has the vintage’s plush, opulent style...
WE
97
JD
97
Case only
Dessert/Fortified Wine
375ml - Case of 24
Bottle: $30.78
Barrel Sample. This wine shows great balance and poised elegance. Its botrytis fruit gives it rich intensity, with a...
WE
97
JS
96
Rapid Ship
Dessert/Fortified Wine
375ml
Bottle: $23.90
The pale lemon-gold colored 2019 Coutet is a thrill ride from the get-go, exploding from the glass with fantastically...
WA
97
JS
95

Cinsault Japanese Whiskey Sherry Semillon/sauvignon Blanc

Whisky might not be the first thing that springs to mind when we think of Japanese fine produce, but over the past one hundred years, this fascinating and multi-faceted country has diligently forged a unique whisky identity which is growing in popularity, and which is entirely its own.

The story of Japanese whisky begins in 1918, when Masataka Taketsuru was sent to Scotland to undertake a tour of single malt distilleries in the Highlands, and bring home a knowledge of whisky and distillation skills. He returned full of inspiration, helped no doubt by his new Scottish wife, and alongside his friend, Shinjiro Torii, set up what would become a successful whisky industry.

Today, the Japanese whisky industry is spread over a relatively small handful of distilleries, which continue to use Scottish techniques and recipes, but with a hefty dose of distinctly Japanese experimentalism. This is displayed most obviously in the barrelling techniques the Japanese use - to create a distinctly Oriental set of tasting notes, native Japanese oakwood casks are used for ageing, alongside casks taken from plum wine producers, which impart a beautiful set of floral flavors to the whisky.

While some distilleries produce some excellent single malts, the majority of Japanese whiskies are blended, which reveals a unique set of flavors and aromas ranging from honeysuckle and orange blossom, to toffee and acetone.

Sherry is made in a unique way using the solera system, which blends fractional shares of young wine from oak barrels with older, more mature wines. Sherry has no vintage date because it is blended from a variety of years. Rare, old sherries can contain wine that dates back 25 to 50 years or more, the date the solera was begun. If a bottle has a date on it, it probably refers to the date the company was founded.

Most sherries begin with the Palomino grape, which enjoys a generally mild climate in and around the triad of towns known as the "Sherry Triangle" and grows in white, limestone and clay soils that look like beach sand. The Pedro Ximenez type of sweet sherry comes from the Pedro Ximenez grape.

Sherry is a "fortified" wine, which means that distilled, neutral spirits are used to fortify the sherry. The added liquor means that the final sherry will be 16 to 20 percent alcohol (higher than table wines) and that it will have a longer shelf life than table wines.